Longing for simpler times in America?

June 2, 2010: Chances are at one time or another you’ve probably longed for those days that seemed so much simpler.

Days when you could leave your front door unlocked and the convenience store was Qwik Stop, where the average time to stop and get a frozen burrito and Coke, was just 2 minutes.

A time when “cell phone,” meant their was a phone in your jail cell and locals could go to the Valley of the Moon Park and not worry about getting shot.

Unfortunately those things are long gone.

The shooting of 21 year old Saroeum Muon over the weekend at the local park isn’t really a surprise. The number of gun fire stories in the Anchorage news has reached a saturation point and they appear to be getting more brazen. 

A 17 year old girl killed by a drive by shooting, an Anchorage Police Officer shot while in his patrol car and now this…a man shot in a crowded park, in broad daylight, as he tried to run away.

There is no question times have changed, but most of the negative change in society has been because individuals have ceased to be responsible for their own actions. Alternatively, there is no shortage of blame for anti-social behavior.

Last month President Obama in a speech to Hampton University said, “With ipods and ipads and Xboxes and play stations, information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment.”

Damn you Steve Jobs.
   
Meanwhile, Mark lilla writing in the New York Review of Books says, "For half a century now Americans have been rebelling in the name of individual freedom, and now we have it, which is a good thing -though it brought us more out-of-wedlock births, a soft pornographic popular culture, and a drug trade that serves casual users while destroying poor American neighborhoods."

Damn you free will.

So the villians according to some appear to be iphones, individual freedoms and stoners in Khakis.

From what I can see, the problem isn't Apple or even Applebees (America ranks as the worlds most obese developed nation), the problem is a lack of responsibility. We love our freedoms (it's what makes America, America), but we love them more when someone else pays the cost.

We cheer people like Mat-Su dairy farmer Wayne Broast, who was pictured holding a sign that said "No More Pork" at a recent Tea Party rally in Wasilla, but we look the other way when he gorges himself on both federal and state government handouts and subsidies for his dairy.

In fact if not for the teet of government, Broast would not be in business.

The real problem isn't iphones or the fact that we have been successful in protecting individual freedoms over the last two hundred plus years, the problem rests in those who don't accept responsibility that comes with individual freedoms.

Today, from gun fights in public parks to individuals lined up at the buffet of government subsidies, things aren't as bad as they seem in some areas and definitely worse in others.

First, the FBI recently reported that crime was down last year.

Preliminary crime figures from the Federal Bureau of Investigation for 2009 show that the crime rate is falling across America, across all categories. Violent was down 5.5 percent and property crime down 4.9 percent between 2008 and 2009, according to FBI statistics released last Monday.

Normally that would defy logic as experts expect higher crime rates during times of recession. Maybe all the would be crooks are playing video games or talking on their iphones.

Second, we're growing older, fatter and more diverse as a country. Americans now consume an average of 2,700 calories a day, about 500 calories than just forty years ago.

Obese Americans spend 42% more on health care than healthy weight people at a time when health care costs represent one of the biggest grabs on the federal purse. And in the next few decades, the minority will become the majority.

We've grown deeper in debt, so much so, that even a full economic recovery won't be enough to stave off higher taxes. Meanwhile angry Americans like Wayne Broast are holding Tea Party rallies on the way to cash their government checks.

In addition, governments in general are just making bad decisions.

In Chicago, the local city council and the unions are trying to keep out a Wal-Mart store in the South Side. This is one of the most poor and crime ridden areas in the Chicago area and they're hungry for new jobs. "This town was a labor built town," said one local labor chief leading the opposition.

This is what hurts poor American neighborhoods; remaining poor because of the politics of poverty, while being robbed of viable economic opportunities. This has less to do with drugs destroying neighborhoods and more to with those who have a stake in the status quo.

In Congress, they're approval ratings are at record lows. The disconnect that lawmakers lament about the electorate has less to do with the public fiddling with their new ipads, and more to do with them being tired of politics as usual. 

A decade ago, pundits lamented the generation X were a bunch of slackers, losers, and dead enders, but yet they went on to provide us with some of the greatest advances in technology to date like Google, You Tube, and Amazon.

We long for simpler times gone by, but they're just that; gone.

We don't need yesterday, we just need a tomorrow where more Americans are  responsible for their behavior.